


Blueprint

by mainecoon76



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 13:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mainecoon76/pseuds/mainecoon76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John cannot fathom why, even given the circumstances, he should be facing something as pathetic as an existential crisis. But a very strange encounter sets things into a new perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueprint

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by and discussed with mrs_sweetpeach once again – thank you so much!

_“There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”  
(Fortune Cookie in Chinese Restaurant, according to John Watson’s blog, entry for “My new flatmate”) _

 

_Emptiness_ is perhaps the best word to describe it.

It’s not like John hasn’t been there before. He’s lost comrades and friends. He attended the burial of both his parents, calm and pale and more composed than he ought to have been. He knows how it feels to be walking on cotton, with every sound tuned down and the colours fading and it’s like watching one’s own life like one of the old black-and-white silent movies without the soundtrack: pale, mute, in jerky movements, and all feelings are gone along with the senses. He thinks it’s probably a state of shock in which he has been during the last two weeks, and that it will pass in a matter of days, or perhaps another week, and he should be grateful while it lasts because when it’s over the pain will set in, sharp, agonizing, making every waking moment an ordeal. Sleep already is, because he keeps having the same visions over and over again, visions of red blood on white skin and sightless grey eyes and a body falling from great height; but he is used to nightmares.

Yet, somehow, this is different. 

He’s always been a survivor; he can function against all odds, and there was always the knowledge that carrying on would make it all more bearable eventually. And it’s not like he doesn’t try. But this time, when John gets up in the mornings and goes to work and then to the coffee shop and gets a takeaway and goes to bed without entering the living-room, he doesn’t really know why he keeps doing it, because none of it actually makes sense to him. This time it feels like he’s truly lost the ground below his feet, the very reason for his existence, and he can’t quite fathom why, because it’s not like Sherlock was the love of his life. And even if he had been, he, John, should be able to get a hold on himself and not turn this into a bloody existential crisis. He’s too old for such theatrics; too old, and far too experienced in matters like heartbreak.

 

John sits in the clinic’s small café and mechanically stirs the coffee he doesn’t intend to drink. Coffee was Sherlock’s business, anyway, and now it’s cold because John has been sitting here for twenty minutes, watching the spoon turn in the dark liquid and thinking of nothing in particular. Feeling nothing, either. Perhaps he’ll start disintegrating if he keeps still for long enough. 

He’s aware that dissociative symptoms are not a good sign. He also finds that he doesn’t care.

“You should,” says a voice in his head. It is deep and rich and has a Scottish accent, and he thinks that he has heard it before, and then suddenly he’s not sure if it even was inside his head or outside, so he looks up. A man is standing beside his table. He is holding a cup of tea and wearing a doctor’s coat and a dark moustache, and his brown eyes are kind. John is reasonably sure he’s never seen him before, but there’s something strangely familiar about him.

The man clears his throat.

“Excuse me,” he says. “I was saying, you should get yourself a new cuppa. Stirring won’t warm it up.”

John gives him a blank look.

“May I sit down?” the man asks, extending a hand. “Arthur. I think we’re colleagues. I’m new at the clinic. Old pal of Sarah’s.”

It is a trifle rude to introduce oneself just by first name, John thinks vaguely, and then, someone really should have informed him about this, although in his present state of mind it is entirely possible that he just wasn’t listening. He shakes the man’s hand because it’s the polite thing to do and doesn’t object as the other doctor sits down since you can’t very well affront a new colleague on your first meeting. He’ll be tired of John’s company soon enough. John is not entertaining these days. 

He just hopes the man won’t start talking about the weather. People keep talking about the weather to him and he knows they do it because they think it’s a safe subject, possibly the only safe subject left to talk about to him, and he sees the pity in their eyes and hates it. It’s none of their business.

Arthur doesn’t talk about the weather. He drinks his tea and looks out of the window, idly dabbing away a few spilled drops with his handkerchief, and makes no attempt to force a conversation on John, for which John is exceptionally grateful. He is just beginning to relax – that is, to go back to his comfortably numb state – when Arthur abruptly breaks the silence. 

“I suppose it’s been very bad, hasn’t it,” he asks conversationally, and John looks up in surprise and with a sudden flash of anger. 

“What has?”

“Everything.” Arthur makes a vague gesture. “I’ve read the papers, of course. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks,” John replies stiffly.

“Oh, don’t think I’m sitting here because I want to hear your side of the story. They’re selling us a lot of rubbish, in my opinion. Don’t believe a word of it.”

“Look,” John interrupts him, “Thanks for saying that, I know you’re trying to be friendly, and I really don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t like to talk about this.”

“Of course.” Arthur pauses and sips his tea. “It’s just that… it reminded me of a story I heard. Or maybe I read it somewhere.”

John takes up stirring his coffee again and attempts to look as unwelcoming as possible. He’s not interested in stories. But then…

“There was that tale about the detective who went down a waterfall,” Arthur continues thoughtfully. “Or maybe he didn’t. But there was a friend whom he left behind. They were very close.”

The coffee spoon stops in mid-turn.

_A tale about a detective who went down a waterfall._

The words send a shiver up John’s spine because he knows that somewhere, somehow, he heard that tale too, and it’s important, and he can’t remember it clearly, except for some sharp, crystallized details that suddenly flash up in his mind.

 

_A deadly enemy, a wild hunt across the continent, a faked message._

_The Fall._

_The Letter._

_A man standing at the abyss, disbelieving, helpless, desperately calling out for his lost friend._

_(-red blood on white skin and sightless grey eyes and a body falling from great height-) ___

 

“Do you know,” Arthur asks slowly, his eyes never leaving John’s face, “how that story ends?“ 

“No.” John’s voice sounds hoarse even to his own ears. “I really don’t think… no.” 

He doesn’t; he can’t remember anything else about it, it all seems to be clouded in some kind of mental shadow, lurking in the depths of his mind just out of his reach. All he knows beyond any doubt is that this was not the end. Not even close to it. 

Arthur watches him, and as their eyes meet John suddenly gets the overwhelming feeling that this man _knows_ him; knows not only his story, not only the sensational tales of the newspapers, but his deepest fears and hopes and most private thoughts. _All_ of him. Intimately. 

John freezes and tries to remember how to breathe. 

The other man leans slightly forward and touches his shoulder, the wounded shoulder, his thumb lightly brushing over the invisible trace of his scar. 

“Hold on, John Watson,” he says lowly, fiercely, and it is both an order and a plea. “You must hold on. He is nothing without you.” 

John doesn’t have to ask who the man is talking about. 

Arthur rises and gives him a smile, genuine, worried, almost summoning, searching John’s face and then relaxing when he finds what he has been looking for. 

“OK,” he sighs, taking his cup. “Gotta move on. They were queuing up this morning; don’t know what’s gotten into the public health… See you later, then.” 

“Yeah,” John says, although he seriously doubts it. 

He is not terribly surprised to hear that there is no new colleague, nor that Sarah can’t for the life of her remember any old pal by the name of Arthur. Not that he tells her the whole story, anyway. He is not even sure, as he climbs the stairs to his room later that evening, that it actually happened. Maybe he fell asleep over his cold coffee and dreamt the whole thing up. 

Except that, when he gets ready for bed, a tea-stained handkerchief falls out of his pocket, which is really weird because he could have sworn that he did not put it there. The thing is strangely old-fashioned – or maybe genuinely old, by the look of it – and embroidered with the intertwined letters _ACD_ in one of the corners. John turns it in his hands, unsure of what to do with it, until it suddenly seems like a very good idea to fold it neatly and place it under his pillow, so this is what he does. 

And that night, for the first time in what seems like ages, his sleep is peaceful and the visions are gone. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As my wonderful beta mrs_sweetpeach pointed out to me, there seems to be some anecdotal information that ACD referred to himself as Conan, not Arthur. Unfortunately, no matter how sincerely I try, my first association is Conan the Barbarian; besides, I like to keep people guessing for a while. So, just for the sake of this story, Arthur it is.


End file.
